


Legend

by aimingarrows



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, fairy tale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:34:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimingarrows/pseuds/aimingarrows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An unexpected accident brought a hero to its feet and his demons to its knees, and he certainly didn't think he'd ever amount to anything more than that...until he did. </p><p>This is the story of Tony Stark told as a fairy tale...and fairy tales are legends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Legend

This is the story of a boy.

Nothing but a little boy who wished upon the evening star when the clock struck midnight and when the bells would chime, for a hero that would protect him from himself.

He wished and wished and wished, but the hero never came. And the boy grew up enduring years of bruises, blood, tears and pain. And he never stopped believing that someone would save him.

Save him from himself, from his father, his mother and everything and everyone because pretending to be perfect hurts his head and he feels lonely all the time.

The cold skin of his robots provide comfort, but the chill that rattles through his bones when he touches the metal just reminds him of his cold heart and the lack of warmth in his life.

He wishes for a hero because he doesn't want to be alone.

At first, he wishes for Captain America because he's heard the stories of the valiant soldier creeping along enemy lines in the middle of the night. He wishes for him because he thinks maybe he can protect him from his father because his father loves Captain America.

The little boy is ten when he realizes his father loves Captain America more than he could ever love him.

Then his parents die and he's more alone than ever, and he cries himself to sleep under the light of the evening star and he forgets to wish that night because his heart aches from the pain.

He forgets about the evening star.

And the years fly by and then there's no one in the world who doesn't know his name, and he basks in the glory and he smiles for the cameras and pretends that it doesn't bother him when he reads or hears people insult him because he's a playboy with no heart. And the fact that he knows it's true hurts most of all.

His mask is up for so long that he begins to believe it himself.

He doesn't know who he is anymore.

The scars and wounds from his childhood, all physical, mental and emotional, are still there and he pretends not to feel them hurting or screaming at him when he tries to go to sleep at night.

He became a playboy for the mere reason that maybe he could find solace in company, and finds that there's no relief in that at all.

The screaming the scars give him subside during his nightly duties, but afterward when a woman is sleeping beside him he finds that they're just screaming at him louder, and the insults thrown at him by his very own self gets harsher and harsher until one day he finds himself in a cave in the middle of a warzone in Afghanistan.

There are no windows or light in the cave and the only light comes from his new metal heart and the gas lamps in the room, and he's suddenly that little boy again sitting by his window sill waiting for the bells to chime midnight before he can make his wish for a hero on the evening star.

But he can't see the evening star, so how can he wish for a hero to save him?

He makes himself a hero.

In that cave, when his friend became riddled with bullets because he risked his life to save his own, who helped him hammer and forge himself a character to help him out of the mess he made, was when he decided to avenge the greatest man he's ever known and he'll be damned if he's going to waste his life.

He decides he's going to make his life worth something just so his friend can be proud of him.

When he gets back home he's greeted by his personal assistant, his best friend, chauffeur, business partner and swarms of media, and the bright lights of the city make him wonder if the evening star shone brighter in the middle of the desert.

He makes a better suit of armor this time and he goes and saves himself and his personal assistant when his business partner betrays him, and he wonders if he's falling in love with the woman that stuck by him for ten years.

He thinks that the suit of armor makes a much better mask.

And that's proven when he hides behind it when he realizes he's dying from the very thing that's keeping him alive, and he laughs for the first time in a long time because of the irony.

The newspapers call him a hero after the incident in Monaco, and he feels a spark in his heart because that's one of the first times that he's actually regarded as an actual hero because he actually prevented an attack on civilians rather than trying to stop a man who wanted a copy of his suit.

He thinks that maybe wishing on that evening star for all those years paid off after all.

Then as it turns out he's not going to die after all and he feels like for once in his life everything's fine because he's actually found someone that kept the nightmares from Afghanistan away and the scars from screaming.

Then Loki happens and everything falls down again and it's much harder to get up this time because his knees are bruised from being pushed down so much that he feels like it's not worth getting up at all anymore.

He meets Captain America in the flesh and even though he dislikes the man and the man dislikes him he is everything his father told him about and more and the scars come back because he realizes he's much smaller compared to Captain America than he originally thought he was.

Bruce Banner isn't that bad because they both have their demons and they're both smart and have terrible privileges, but mostly because they both believe they're monsters who are just trying to find their way in the world, but he believes that Bruce is not a monster at all.

His scars and wounds, if shown and released, make him much uglier than a beast.

Thor's a God, so he can't help but feel inferior. And he's already met Natasha before and he knows that she has a skill set that no one can match and he's kind of jealous because she doesn't need a special suit to make herself worth something.

He meets Clint Barton briefly during the battle, and he seems to like the name Legolas so he automatically thinks that the guy must not be all that bad.

The city is enveloped in a world of fire and flames and rich black smoke that it makes it hard to see, but that doesn't mean that he can't hear Nick Fury telling him that there's a nuke coming into the city. His heart takes over his mind and he takes the nuke up the portal because his heart is telling him that it's the right thing to do, even though he doesn't have a real heart at all.

Space is dark and devoid of life, and it scares him to think about floating through an endless space of darkness forever.

When he closes his eyes, he sees that the evening star is much brighter than the explosion of the Chitauri ship.

When he returns to Stark Tower that night after they win, he sits by the huge window sill staring at the sky and sees the evening star, and he feels like a little boy again.

Only this time, his wish has come true.

He wished for a hero, so he made himself one. He never expected he'd amount to anything more than that.

Not just a hero, but a legend.

_The legend of the man who saved the world._

He goes to sleep that night and he dreams of explosions and nothingness, and it scares the little boy inside him.

He can't sleep, and when he does he has nightmares, and the unthinkable happens when his house is destroyed and he's stuck in the middle of nowhere without the suit that made him a legend.

He meets a little boy much like himself, who reminds him that his genius is what makes him a hero.

He thinks that maybe the little boy wishes for a hero on the evening star, and vows to become his hero.

And he does.

The little boy helped him realize that he didn't need a suit to become a hero, because it was his brain that made the suit that helped him become one. And if he has his intelligence and bravery and courage then he can do anything, and the suit is nothing but a toy that he plays with sometimes to help emphasize it.

He gets rid of his metal heart once he realizes that he deserves a real one.

The scars stop screaming at him.

He's still a little boy.

Just a boy who saved the world.

Just a boy who got caught in an unexpected accident that brought a hero to its feet and his demons to its knees.

No, he might not have his suits anymore, but he has his brain and that's what made him a hero in the first place because where would he be without it? But the little boy inside him still wants to play, so he plans to make  _just one more_ suit for occasional use when the world needs his help again because that's what heroes do.

His creations are his saviors, and he forged himself into a hero, and hammered himself into a legend.

This is the story of a legend, and how it never ends.


End file.
